Blog Monkey Read Comic.

If there's one thing I love, it's stories that have an element of Frankenstein's Monster about them. Things that rip, and tear, and rend their way through history, classic literature, decades of comic book continuity and then sew the pieces back together into a new whole. I wouldn't say they're my favourite stories, but I love them none the less. Part of this appeal is the 'Where's Wally?' level of fun to be had. Or Waldo, for our Trans-Atlantic friends. One of my proudest moments, when I was still becoming confident enough to tackle more complex, dare I say, 'adult' books was figuring out who Anubis and Thoth were before their true identities were revealed in American Gods and I don't think I've really outgrown the wonder of sifting through works like that, like Fables and like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and either identifying who the various characters are supposed to represent, and if I don't know (as I didn't know Anansi at the time) finding out. Even when you know the general pool that the writer is drafting from, it can still take you by surprise. Afterall, one minute Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray are making love against a tree, the next...

... Is that... Is that Rupert the Bear, Alan Moore?!

I think this is part of the reason I'm as enthralled with superhero comics as I am. This whole notion of taking otherwise disparate characters that may only be linked by the tenuous bond of happening to be published in the same format and genre as the others is the cornerstone of the superhero team up book. Not to mention with most of the big names having seventy years of history, and even smaller tier characters usually having at least a decade or three behind them, one writers interpretation of a character in 1983 could be galaxies away from another in 1960, or even 2014. Stitching together the sordid history of Hawkman, as Geoff Johns attempted in Justice Society, was as much an act of pushing several different characters into one mould as any issue of Justice League or Avengers. I dread to think what would happen if one were to try and blend all of the various identities of the Question from Ditko up into one continuity and one, blank, unstaring face and we've already seen the maddeningly brilliant, and often just plain maddening, results of Grant Morrison trying to make every single moment of Bat-Continuity work in one incredibly disjointed line.

It's an amazing strength, and an incredible weakness really. It allows for even the most minor character to be reinvented anew, for the grand tapestry of continuity to be wound, unwound and rewound again as any writer or editor or artist sees fit, displaying a whole new, exciting work for the audience to behold. Of course, on the downside there are always those who much prefer how the tapestry used to be, thank you very much! And even if one can forgive this, and roll with the punches, after so many alterations and re-airings even the most resilient tapestry starts to become frayed and faded. I'm put in the mind of something Paul Cornell once said regarding Doctor Who, that sometimes it does a franchise good to lay fallow, and the relevance that statement holds to many a big title out there, but that's perhaps a discussion for another day.

Image taken from aintitcool.com

Failing all of the above, though, there's always just the ultimate expression of Where's Wally/Waldo? in comic media, the big battle scene/charge forward/team meeting where even if your most beloved character is only known by two people in the entire world, if one of those people is the writer of what you're reading? Chances are you'll find him! JLA/Avengers was practically pornography for this kind of thing, involving characters from across both of the big two in costumes from more eras than you can shake a stick at, and I have to admit... I loved it.

So given my now much ruminated on love of this kind of story, when I saw the Kickstarter page for Code Monkey Save World, I was in.

Code Monkey Save World, for those who don't know, is a comic book project by writer Greg Pak and musician Jonathan Coulton to transform Coulton's musical work into a story of fumbling heroism, inept villainy and unrequited love. You can read more about the project here. For those of you who have no idea who Jonathan Coulton is, well, this may ring a bell...

But he's oh so much more than just that one, albeit rather brilliant, song. Jonathan Coulton is a bard for the new age, a man who in days of yore would be telling grand tales of adventure and love and humdrum office work and the material worth of extremely fancy pants around roaring camp fires. And they'd also be rather amusing to boot! His songs are all quirky little stories in and of themselves, telling self-contained tales of colourful characters that will bloom to life in your imagination and, at the very least, put a smile on your face. The idea of these songs being brought to life in comic book form is alluring enough as it is, and Greg Pak, the writer behind the fantastically excellent Incredible Hercules series, is certainly the man to do it.

So, as the popular internet meme often cries, I shut up and I gave them my money.

Fast forward to a few months later, and a non-de-script brown envelope arrived at my door earlier today. Inside, I found the following:

I'd been reading Smoke and Mirrors all afternoon, and it seemed like the perfect antidote to the string of rather unsettling short stories that come after The Goldfish Pool. A literary palette cleanser, if you will. I was fairly excited, I'd only read the first issue on it's own, resolving to experience the rest of the story in one sitting. I'm glad I did, really, it read a whole lot more fluidly than my experience with reading the first issue alone.

You see, Code Monkey Save World is not really the kind of book that demands a keen eye in case you miss a small, hidden away reference or a character you think is an extra is in fact a wink to another song. There are some nice touches, and great detailing in the background. I love, for example, that the SCM company name is featured prominently in the first few pages - Giving those in the know a clue of what's to come, without being entirely too obvious. But for the most part, it focuses it's efforts on bringing to life a few characters and scenarios from a handful of songs with a laser keenness, rather than becoming a menagerie of tit-bits and nudge-nudge-wink-wink references from across Coulton's discography.

Instead it exemplifies the other reason why I love these kinds of stories, the way they allow writers to take existing ideas and characters that were presented in one way and then expose them to whole new elements not possible in their original incarnation. It would be like throwing Sherlock Holmes into Hogwarts, or Darth Vader into King Arthur's court. You may not get anything particularly good from it, you may even be completely dismissive of it in principle, but if it existed and was put into the right pair of creative hands, well, you'd want a peek, wouldn't you? I know I would.

The one thing I think Pak has done extremely well in this project, is to take just the right elements from just the right songs so that all the stories are allowed to interweave and entwine together to make something wholly unique, but still feeling very true to the original voice of the music. This isn't just spot the song reference, it's taking the stories from Jonathan Coulton's songs and carefully stitching them together into something else. To the point where I can happily listen to The Future Soon and imagine, very clearly, that the poor, hapless, lovesick soul in that song, is one and the same person as the maniacal super villain from Skullcrusher Mountain. And to be honest, I think that's a much greater achievement, that must have taken a hell of a lot of careful planning and work connecting the various dots, than a cursory read of the comic would imply.

Couple this with some good, but not perfect, characterisation, an upbeat tone of sly humour throughout and some very clean, very beautiful art from Takeshi Miyazawa and for me, at least, this is something I'm very proud to have had a hand in making happen. I notice the spine of the book has a little '1' on it, and if this creative team intends to do more in future? I'll definitely be game at throwing them some more money, and look forward to seeing what other songs they want to not only bring to life, but breathe a whole new life of their own, into next.

Final verdict? It most definitely puts the rock in the house!